


Yes, Daddy

by AnotherAnon0



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Injury, Childhood Trauma, Consensual Non-Consent, Daddy Issues, Discipline, Drowning, Face Punching, Father Figures, Hand Jobs, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Internal Conflict, M/M, MEGA Dead Dove:Do Not Eat, Mental Health Issues, Non-Sexual Bondage, Non-Sexual Kink, Non-Sexual Submission, Possibly Unrequited Love, Psychological Trauma, Public Humiliation, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:55:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24747184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnotherAnon0/pseuds/AnotherAnon0
Summary: Mikhail plays therapist for a broken Nicholai.The therapy is unconventional.[Heed tags!]
Relationships: Nicholai Ginovaef | Nikolai Zinoviev/Mikhail Victor
Comments: 7
Kudos: 20





	Yes, Daddy

**Author's Note:**

> "Paposhka" [папочка] is the Russian equivalent of "Daddy."

**Sunday, August 24, 1998**

"What do you stand to gain... doing this for me?"

The question was one that had pricked at the back of Nicholai's mind since their rituals had begun. It danced shallowly through the hollow stomach of the large room, an old mess-hall in the furthest reaches of the U.B.C.S barracks. The concrete walls didn't absorb sounds, instead letting the words bounce from corner to corner in a short, tinny echo.

"Do I need to be... _gaining_ something?" The answer was slow, inquisitive, curious, amused. 

Mikhail's voice could only be described as _crisp_. A vocal manifestation of an ice-cold glass of tonic water with a sharp squeeze of lemon. It simultaneously rolled and pricked, accent perpetually broken in his sluggish stream of addictive raspiness. Nicholai hated how every word that slipped from the man's lips felt perfectly calculated, even in casual conversation. He never needed to think of what to say, yet everything he said was perfect, driven, forceful. His voice betrayed his look. 

Nicholai subtly turned his eyes towards the older man, taking caution not to move his chin too much and make it obvious he was now staring.

_His look._

Mikhail was sitting on a firm, black couch that was set close to the back of the room. It was the only piece of furniture in it, save for a large, brown closet nestled against the wall near the door. 

He didn't look like a soldier, Nicholai thought. He had the look of a kindly uncle -- a _dyadya_. Broad shouldered and strong, but in a way that read as patriarchal, effortless, natural. His body didn't have the sinewy, harsh contours of a man who obsessively spent hours at the gym maintaining his strength and physique like Nicholai did. His face was rosey and round, a perpetual soft smile tugging at his lips complimented by the sparkle of kind eyes that seemed to be every shade of green, brown, and blue simultaneously. 

Those eyes caught his stare short in its tracks. The attempt at subtly was dead on arrival.

"Everyone tries to gain something." Nicholai muttered, turning back to the object in his hands. He was kneeling on the floor beside the massive fireplace, a delicately roaring fire crackling away inside. Its warmth was penetrating the left side of his body, casting an orange glow over the hemp ropes that were laying across his thighs. 

The nine-tailed whip didn't have enough knots. Mikhail had told him to braid three more along each of the thin tendrils. Hands working reverently with each length of rope, Nicholai dutifully counted centimetres using his finger, ensuring each was perfectly spaced.

"Every time I think I've heard your most cynical belief, you surprise me with one even more cynical than the last." There was humour in the words crackling out of Mikhail's lips. The older man sat back, leaning into the couch and kicking his legs out in front of him in a lazy splay, "What do you think I have to gain?"

Nicholai secured a knot, pulling the rope taught between his hands. It make a crunching noise as the fibres rubbed together harshly.

"I don't know." He said flatly, looping another length of rope and carefully positioning the knot, "That's why I asked."

"You don't know because there is nothing to know." Mikhail was smiling. Nicholai could hear it in his voice, "I have nothing to gain. Quite a bit to lose."

Another knot, "Lose?"

"You're a dangerous man when you are broken. You'll be even more dangerous when you're well." Mikhail smiled in a contented, soft amusement. 

"One day, you will kill us all, Nicholai Zinoviev."

~

**Monday, August 26, 1998**

Nicholai groaned into his pillow. 

Lying face down on the thin mattress, he tried to remain perfectly still. Even the smallest, involuntary twitch in his muscles caused his body to scream in protest. He'd made the mistake of trying to adjust his legs a few minutes earlier, and his back was pulsating in anguishing waves of consequence.

Through the muffle of the plush fabric cushioning his head, he could hear the sound of rushing water stopping as the taps creaked shut in the small, en-suit bathroom in his dorm room. The pipes glugged loudly as slow bootsteps treaded across the laminate floor. 

Closer. 

Closer.

Even though he couldn't see it, Nicholai knew he was being loomed over. He could practically feel the eyes running up and down the length of the bruised and broken flesh of his exposed back, hips, and rear. 

"And you wanted to go to training today?" Mikhail _tsk'd_ , clicking his tongue against his teeth in disapproval. 

Nicholai lifted his head slightly, a snarl coming across his face.

"I **_can_** go to training, I just ne-- _gahh_!"

Flashes of white, hot pain seared behind Nicholai's eyes as a moist cloth delicately dabbed at his wounds. He buckled under the touch, gasping into the pillow in anxious distress as his hands clutched desperately at the fabric of the sheets beneath him. 

"Some dried blood..." The older man muttered, sighing, "I have to try and clean it."

Nicholai whimpered and quivered as Mikhail gently swabbed, complimenting the songs of birds cheerily chirping beyond the small, solitary window in the room. Mikhail had drawn the thin, white curtains when he arrived, leaving the them shrouded in a hazy, stifled sunlight.

"No training for one week." The Captain nodded, folding the reddening cloth over on itself to expose an unblemished corner of the fabric he could use, "No gym. _Nichego_."

"One week!" Nicholai's protest was muffled into the pillow.

"One week." Mikhail asserted flatly. The bedsprings groaned under weight as he took a cautious seat beside Nicholai's thigh, "I don't want to catch you out of this bed. I will have food sen--"

Nicholai scoffed loudly, but it was still dampened by the thick fabric cushioning his head, "I will get fat and weak."

"Then you will be fat and weak." Mikhail chuckled, turning to toss the blood-stained cloth in the laundry hamper, "Oh well. Not the end of the world."

~

**Wednesday, September 1, 1998**

Nicholai sighed, dropping his head back and looking at the pressed-tin ceiling of the office in exasperation. 

He was nibbling on the inside of his cheek anxiously, the chipper ticking of the wooden clock on the bookshelf unnerved him.

Mikhail hadn't arrived yet. 

It had been almost one hour, and he wondered how much longer he'd have to wait for the inevitable. Harassed by the clock's incessant ticking, he began mulling over what had transpired that day. The idle pacing in his room that had led to the decision to slip out. He had felt like a caged animal under Mikhail's orders, and by day two he had been sticking his head out of his bedroom's small window in an attempt to feel air and sunshine on his face. 

The moment he opened the door and passed the threshold into the hallway, he knew he had gone awry -- but the entitled ego creeping through his head had internally accosted the demand. ' _What right does he have_?' it insisted, and Nicholai had slipped from his room on its encouragement.

_Mikhail rubbed his lips together, a frown tugging at the corners of his mouth._

_"What did I say?"_

_"I feel fine." Nicholai crossed his arms tightly, cocking his chin at him in amateur derisiveness._

_"But what did I **say**?" Mikhail's voice was a low, slow-burning whisper. It cut harshly across the sounds of the mercenaries shouting, laughing, and conversing all around them in the canteen, largely oblivious to the two and the nature of their conversation. _

_Their eyes were locked tightly on each other's, Mikhail's usually jovial, glimmering gaze suppressed by a shadow that could only be interpreted as disappointment._

_Nicholai huffed, "I feel fine." He repeated, but the assertion was notably quieter than the last._

_Mikhail's jaw remained clenched, the aggressive silence passing between them interrupted only when a mercenary attempting to slip behind Nicholai with his meal tray accidentally knocked into him, the tray clamouring to the ground and Nicholai lurching forward in a gape-mouthed pain._

_"Oh shit, I am so sor--" The mercenary began, hiccuping slightly in surprise when he took in the expression of searing anguish on the Sargeant's face -- one that was inappropriately egregious for an accidental shoulder to the back._

_"Fuck off!" Nicholai snapped, sucking a breath in through his teeth. A few of the nearby tables went silent, turning to face the commotion._

_Mikhail ushered the mercenary away, a soft, plastic smile plying over his lips intersected with reassuring hushes._

_"Go to my office. Now." He suddenly turned and snapped at the Sargeant._

_A small cacophony of gasps and mews erupted from the tables around them, the mercenaries shooting entertained, sarcastically shocked looks at each other as Mikhail publicly chastised the Sargeant._

Mikhail had grabbed him by the collar of his fatigue shirt almost immediately after entering the office, striding up to him stalkishly as the wooden door slammed behind him loudly. Nicholai had gasped in shock at the abrupt manipulation of his body towards the large office's adjacent bathroom, initially almost being dragged a few steps before grounding his boots on the floor, stumbling along beside the older man the short distance.

The Captain released him once they crossed the threshold, taking a solitary few additional steps to the bathtub and turning on the tap.

"Take off your shirt." The order was curt and firm, Mikhail casting it over his shoulder as he dipped down to plug the drain. 

Silently, Nicholai complied, draping the fabric over the small towel hook that was on the wall as Mikhail took a heavy seat on the closed lid of the toilet. 

"Let me see your back."

The younger man huffed indignantly, taking a step forward and kneeling between Mikhail's legs with his back towards the Captain. 

" _Proklyat'ye!_ " Mikhail scoffed, wincing at the small patch of blood that was caked against a re-opened wound between Nicholai's shoulder blades. "This would not have happened had you stayed in your room."

He grabbed the towel that was draped over the side of the sink, leaning to dip it in the water rapidly filling the bathtub before attempting to gently dab away the half-dried crust of red. Carefully, he swiped at the blood which surrounded one of many pebble-shaped incisions created by the knot of the nine-tailed whip. Nicholai grunted, involuntarily moving away from the touch, but Mikhail quickly grabbed his shoulder and held him steady. 

"This would not have happened had you _stayed in your room_." The Captain repeated, words dripping out of his lips slower than they had before. "Had you _listened_ to me."

Nicholai shuddered as disappointment leaked out of the older man with the same ferociousness as the water rushing from the bathtub tap.

Somehow, the gentle, kindly dissatisfaction was worse than him being angry. It always was. 

Once he had cleaned the wound, Mikhail used his grip on Nicholai's shoulder to turn him towards the bathtub, adjusting him until his knees were against its base. 

A moment of unspoken words passed between them, Nicholai watching the rushing water climb up the walls of the tub. It was almost full, now. 

"You know why this is happening, yes?" Mikhail sighed, his hand slipping from the younger man's shoulder to reach under his chin, gently turning Nicholai's head towards him, "I do not enjoy doing this."

" _Da papochka_."

"I am doing this because you did not listen, and you used language I have asked you not to use." Mikhail huffed a dissatisfied breath from his nose, "Do you understand?"

" _Da papochka_."

The bar of soap tasted bitter, chalky, and acrid. Nicholai's tongue recoiled, inadvertently wiping across it with every little twitch of disgust as Mikhail inserted it into his mouth. As his saliva drenched it, the taste became more pronounced, tendrils of drool almost immediately beginning to leak out of the corners of his lips as his throat rejected the possibility of swallowing. A hand planted itself at the back of his neck, gripping into the short, silver locks there cautiously.

"We will get through this quickly." Mikhail released what could have been his hundredth sigh, anxious exasperation mingling with the disappointment in every breath, "And you will be better for it."

The grip on Nicholai's hair became tighter just before his head was plunged into the water.

Internally, both of them were likening it to a baptism.

~

**Monday, September 9, 1998**

"It is your birthday soon." 

Nicholai scoffed a sardonic chuckle, "Who cares?"

"I do." Mikhail's answer came quickly, assertively, but dripping with amusement as he once again was faced with childish cynicism.

The younger man adjusted his position slightly, wrapping his arms tighter around Mikhail's waist. He was curled against the Captain, the two sharing the rock-hard couch in the old mess hall that had become a place of significance. Mikhail's arm was arm was around his shoulder, his fingers wispily dancing through the hair of his temple. 

"You keep squirming." The Captain cocked an eyebrow, "Are you uncomfortable?"

He grunted an unintelligible response into the fabric of Mikhail's sweater, his head rested on the older man's chest.

"Hmm?" 

Nicholai lifted his head slightly, "Yes." He grumbled, dropping his head back down on the other man and closing his eyes. 

Mikhail chuckled, "How will it be more comfortable?" 

Another unintelligible response muffled by Nicholai digging his nose into the older man's chest. 

"Hmm?"

"I'm fine."

The fireplace crackled, the sounds of wood snapping and plumes of the familiar, comforting scent of smoke creeping through the room. Coupled with the soft, steady beat of Mikhail's heart and the warmth of his arms, Nicholai knew it should have all been fantastically comforting. 

And yet it wasn't. 

Nicholai knew it said something awful about him. He knew it confirmed how broken he was. 

The evenings of tenderness were much harder to bear than those of repression. Nicholai recalled the first time Mikhail had ordered him to the couch, scooping him up in his arms and holding him tightly, he'd almost anxiously hyperventilated himself into unconsciousness. Mikhail had stroked his back as he trembled pathetically, dry-swallowing the occasional sob and quivering away from the little, soft touches along his arms, jaw, and head. It was an obsessive, terrified reaction he'd never had towards anything else they did. And while he struggled to understand his own behaviour, Mikhail didn't. 

And a part of Nicholai was infuriated that the older man knew before he did.

_"He never touched you with affection."_

_"He did... wh-when he.. he was going to..."_

_"That's not affection."_

Nicholai wriggled, sighing in annoyance as his legs, folded beneath him, awkwardly tried to find purchase on the couch. Even turned away, he could feel Mikhail's smile beaming into the back of his head. 

Yes, he was uncomfortable.

But he was _less_ uncomfortable _._

_~_

**Friday, September 11, 1998**

_"Punch me in the face."_

Initially, Mikhail had been taken aback by the request -- a response to the simple question of what the younger man wanted as a birthday gift.

Initially, he was going to decline -- but Nicholai had a look in his eyes he'd pegged to the tiniest note. An assured, contented assertiveness mingling with a demented want.

Mikhail knew that look. 

Desperation. Need. It was an itch that was screaming to be scratched, an obsessive drive. The last time he'd seen the look was when they'd first began and Nicholai was still orienting himself in their rituals. The look had been cast upon him, as he'd asked Nicholai what he needed to stop making marks on the inside of his thighs. The younger man had asked to be choked that night, and the next, and the next. Slowly, the marks faded as no new ones emerged, daily inspections intersecting the rituals.

Mikhail began to realise that healing for Nicholai was a process of creating new wounds that masked the old ones -- and fresh wounds healed easier than old ones repeatedly picked. The Captain had spent more than one night up wondering if he was doing the right thing, and while a part of his mind condemned the cathartic trysts, another part told him he would rather control and monitor the damage by inflicting it himself.

The Captain adjusted the tactical glove on his right hand. He'd wrapped his knuckles prior to slipping it on, attempting to cushion them slightly with a bit of muscle wrap. He knew it wasn't going to make much of a difference, but had done it regardless.

"You will stay in your room until you are healed?" Less of a question than it was an assertion, it was one Mikhail had made once already but felt the need to reaffirm.

" _Da paposhka_."

Standing before the mantel, the toes of their boots were mere inches away from each other. Mikhail assessed Nicholai for a moment, watching the iridescent orange glow of the fire beam off of the left side of his face, casting shadowy contours over the right. He could tell the younger man was steeling himself, feet grounded beneath his shoulders, arms taut at his sides.

The fire crackled and gusted as a log broke down to ash.

In one swift motion, Mikhail grabbed the collar of Nicholai's shirt with his left hand, right arm cocking back before the first blow landed harshly across Nicholai's cheek. 

The younger man emitted a sputtering gasp, instinctively raising to grab at the hand gripping his shirt as he stabilised himself on legs that had gone momentarily shaky and numb. 

" _Ty'v poryadke_?" 

Nicholai nodded quickly, swallowing hard as a creeping numbness began to radiate hotly from his jaw. He adjusted his standing, again bracing his boots against the floor firmly. Mikhail tightened his grip on the younger man's shirt, waiting for him to ground himself.

The millisecond he did, the Captain issued the second punch. His fist landed closer to the corner Nicholai's wincing lip that time, puncturing the flesh against his teeth and splitting it on contact.

Nicholai's yelp was somewhere between a sob and a barking laugh, ragged pants combing past his bleeding lip as inhales were relegated to sharp breaths through his nose. Mikhail clenched his jaw as he watched the tendril of red drip down the younger man's chin jaggedly. His tongue was rolling against it inside his mouth, pushing at the wounded flesh tenderly. The lip was fattening rapidly as the cheek continued to swell. 

" _Ty'v poryadke_?" 

The question came again, Mikhail's voice a low grunt of dissatisfaction.

" _D-da pap-poshka_." Nicholai's words were breathy and slightly slurred, thick drool beginning to leak from the corner of his split lip.

Mikhail took a deep, exasperated breath, cracking his neck before cocking his arm back again and delivering another blow. A sickening crunch was emitted from Nicholai's face as his fist made contact. Nicholai's legs buckled and he dropped to his knees, trembling and whimpering loudly. Mikhail's grip on his collar was the only thing that kept him from collapsing back.

The Captain didn't bother asking if the younger man was alright, eyes intently focused on the tendrils of blood beginning to pour from Nicholai's nose. Some cartilage had clearly been disrupted. His eyes followed the blood, watching it mingle with the sticky saliva bubbling from Nicholai's mouth and forming slow-dripping stalactites from his chin. The drip of red-tinted drool fell the short distance to Nicholai's hips, pooling on the fabric straining over a very obvious erection.

Mikhail squatted down slowly, coming face-to-face with the younger man. A moment of ragged silence passed between them. The dying fire wasn't as loud as it was minutes before.

Carefully, the Captain tugged at Nicholai's fly, unzipping it with two fingers before slipping his hand into the opening and gently tugging the arousal free. There was blood on his glove that stained the warm, solid member, rubbing into the flesh perversely, mixing with the precum as Mikhail stroked.

" _Y-ya kho-roshiy m-mal'chik_?" The question was fragmented with soft weeping. The glassy sheet that had formed over Nicholai's eyes hadn't quite fallen.

" _Da_."

~

**Tuesday, September 14, 1998**

It was a short visit. One he'd made every night since Nicholai's birthday.

Mikhail sat on the uncomfortable wooden chair across from Nicholai's bed, forearms leaned against his thighs. One of his legs was bouncing incessantly.

No words had been spoken, nor would any be spoken. 

His eyes traced the contour of Nicholai's bruised face. The swelling had apexed, a shiny sheen of taut flesh masked the usually harsh, precise angles of the man's masculine jaw, nose, and cheekbones. He'd brought Nicholai ice-packs, cold compresses, and pills to help the pain. They were always placed, positioned, and accepted in silence.

The younger man's gaze remained trained on the dark corner in front of his bed as if it was an endless, open pit into nothingness -- As if there were demons lurking in it ready to lurch forward at any moment.

Perhaps there were. 

Mikhail sighed, leaning back into the creaking chair. Behind the drawn curtains of the window, the parroting orchestra of hundreds of crickets in the tall grass were a reminder of the late hour.

Internally, he interrogated the delicacy of human beings. Built with such resilience and endurance, bodies which could and would heal, it was the invisible wounds -- the quiet whispers in the mind -- that could bring even the strongest man to his knees.

The invisible wounds took longer to heal than the physical ones.

But sometimes they didn't at all, or got infected and festered with puss and grime.

There was no disinfectant for the mind. No first-aid spray or alcohol wipes. It couldn't be bandaged or splinted. 

Internally, he wondered if he was doing the right thing. A conversation he'd had with himself more times than he could remember. 

He didn't have an answer, and knew he'd never.

~

**Monday, September 28, 1998**

The symbolism behind what had happened wasn't lost on Nicholai. It rolled peskily through his mind, prodding at his temples in the form of a headache he couldn't address for a lack of Safsprin. 

The death of the father at the hands of the son. A symbolic father, but a father nonetheless. A man who had understood him and had tried to help him.

_"What do you stand to gain... doing this for me?"_

He _had_ helped him. And Nicholai couldn't shake the feeling he older man had anticipated exactly what he was helping him into. 

_"One day, you will kill us all, Nicholai Zinoviev."_

Mikhail had given him one look before he'd heroically turned to face the beast he'd locked him in the subway car with. Their eyes had met for the smallest moment before the woman started harping at him through the glass of the door. 

Disappointment. 

That emotion he'd pegged as being worse than anger. The one that hurt far more for reasons he couldn't explain.

As he slowly puffed one of his last cigarettes, he tried to ignore the slight quiver in his breath. The tremble in his cheeks. The contracting, claustrophobic tightness in his throat. 

He sat on the railing of the bridge overlooking Woolworth Street, watching plumes of smoke and ash bubble up from the subway-connected grates in the road. 

The smoke hissed as it fluttered up to the darkened city sky, black and grey wisps curling through the rank, breezeless air like spirits searching for heaven.

" _Proshchay, papochka._.."

**Author's Note:**

> Additional translations:
> 
> Nichego/Ничего = Nothing.
> 
> Proklyat'ye/Проклятье = Goddamnit.
> 
> Ty'v poryadke/ты в порядке = Are you alright?
> 
> Ya khoroshiy mal'chik?/Я хороший мальчик? = I am a good boy?
> 
> Proshchay papochka/Прощай, папочка = Farewell, daddy.
> 
> ~
> 
> Well this was a lot. 
> 
> I will pretend I did not write it and be absolved of these sins.
> 
> Cannot lie, this absolutely was inspired by ShipVigilante and I discussing aftercare and how Nicholai never gets any in our pics. So I had intended it to be a bit fluffier then... it ended up... being...
> 
> So sorry. TT-TT


End file.
